


I May Be Going Tomorrow

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: Jupeter Vampire AU [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Non-Binary Character, Consumption, Cuddling & Snuggling, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, Sickfic, Vampire Peter Nureyev, Vampire Turning, Victorian Fainting Lady Syndrome, and by that i mean consumption, in the worst possible way, wonder why thats not a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: The first human guest Nureyev invited into the manor since his marriage was a doctor, and after that, a priest. When science and faith failed him hand in hand, he merely turned to opening a window and playing his violin, as if such a thing might help someone getting sicker by the day.He knew it was barely a step above helplessness, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.This functions as a standalone, though it is technically a (kind-of) sequel to Trade in All Our Silver Bullets!!
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Jupeter Vampire AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981267
Comments: 31
Kudos: 112





	I May Be Going Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all!! look you liked the vampires............here's more
> 
> Content warnings for uhhhh tuberculosis and everything that entails (i.e. terminal illness, fever, cough/breathing issues), blood mention, minor injury, grief/mourning, food mention, illness-related loss of appetite, nausea mention
> 
> not to call myself out but this is just a sickfic for people who like dark academia. title from forever and a year. go listen it makes me soft

The first human guest Nureyev invited into the manor upon the hill since his marriage was a doctor, and after that, a priest. When science and faith failed him hand in hand, he merely turned to opening a window and playing his violin, as if such a thing might help someone getting sicker by the day.

He knew it was barely a step above helplessness, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

For as focused as he remained on the notes and those separated, baroque chords he so loved to run across the neck of his instrument, each note grew shakier when his fingers clutched too tightly to the violin, aching from hours and hours of attempting to soothe his partner. 

Juno was seldom awake enough to converse, merely laying back against a bed that had once been theirs and trying his best to breathe through disobedient lungs. With nowhere to go and no way to help, Nureyev merely learned his favorite pieces and played them over and over again, as if his sonata could do what medicine could not.

When either his hands gave out or Juno begged him to cease before one of his fingers sprained, he spent the remainder of his time with a damp cloth across Juno’s face, his other hand running gentle little circles into his scalp. He offered tea and whatever comfort foods he remembered how to make, dredging up childhood memories like anchors from the bottom of the sea.

If the doctor and priest did nothing, his attempts at cooking did even less. Attempting his father’s old strategy of feeding someone comfort food until their condition improved did little to assist someone without appetite, even when that hacking, bloodied cough seemed to devour him alive.

Nureyev couldn’t help but think of mere weeks ago, when his lover’s face had been full and his hands were half as skeletal and he had only coughed once or twice into a handkerchief. Juno joked about having coughed after biting his tongue and accidentally splattering blood into the cloth like those frail and ill heroines of all the sappy romance novels he pretended to hate. Peter didn’t find the joke particularly funny anymore.

Juno didn’t talk much, so when he called Nureyev’s name, it was enough for his violin playing to cease as if his bow had been snapped.

“Nureyev,” Juno repeated from the bed, words swept away by the breeze from the open window like a dead leaf plucked from a tree. 

Peter hurried over to close the window so he could better hear his partner. Once, Juno might have winced at the sudden noise. However, his face merely contorted for a moment, as if he could not bring any more than his eyes and mouth to flinch.

Nureyev sighed apologetically nonetheless.

“I’m sorry,” he started.

“No time,” Juno returned with a weak pat to his hand when Nureyev sank into the mattress at his side. “Don’t waste it apologizing.”

“Darling, you mustn't talk like that,” Nureyev began with a gentle smile, though Juno’s face refused to soften in response. He persevered anyway. “You’re the strongest person I know, love. If anyone can pull through, it’s you.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been barely pulling through for months,” Juno replied flatly, though from lack of energy or the petulant temper Peter had somehow fallen in love with, he could not tell.

“Tell me what this is about,” Nureyev pressed. “May I touch you?”

Juno wheezed out a sigh and nodded. He let his eyes fall shut when Nureyev’s hand rose to his face, tracing old scars and new protrusions of bone like an artist, eyes reverent upon their study. He had become accustomed to his wife’s face being just too hot on a good day and blazing on a bad one, though he was determined their intimacy shouldn’t suffer just because he needed a cool cloth to be able to do more than run his fingertips along his partner’s cheek.

Nureyev had never chosen his lot in fate. He hadn’t ever intended to receive that injury that left him bedridden for a week and then without a pulse for the remainder of an eternally lifeless life. However, he far preferred being able to remain here and comfort Juno without fear of illness to the alternative.

“You heard what the doctor said,” Juno started.

“Juno, I don’t know if I can have this conversation right now,” Nureyev cut in. “Just because the two of you are equally morbid individuals doesn’t mean I need to agree with the prognosis you’ve decided upon.”

Juno rolled his eyes, for once, without any affection.

“You didn’t go to medical school,” Juno huffed, even though his head tipped towards Nureyev’s hand like a withering late-summer bloom turning its face towards the sun in a last-ditch attempt to drag itself into the autumn.

“My darling—”

“I’m gonna die, Nureyev,” Juno cut him off.

“And what of it?” Peter insisted. “Why must we think about it, darling? The reaper has brought himself into our marriage bed. He needs nothing more from me.”

He hadn’t meant for his words to burn hotter than Juno’s brow on those days when a cold bath and a sprint down to the village for ice were the only things that kept the single thread by which he clung to life from breaking. He hadn’t meant for his fangs to bare or his hand to fall from Juno’s face, but the words had slipped past his lips and the damage had been done.

“We need to talk about it at some point,” Juno sighed.

Nureyev had hoped Juno might reply with anger or hurt or whatever Peter felt he deserved in return. However, the resignation seared far worse than any burn could, making his silver bullet scar seem like a papercut in comparison. 

Peter didn’t want to drag another apology from his throat, for it seemed he had spent his every waking moment sorry for something or another. If he wasn’t sorry for his nerve running thin, he was sorry for playing his violin too loudly or disrupting Juno’s sleep, just because those things were easier to apologize for than the damned lot fate had cast upon them. He didn’t know how to put into words that he wished he could tear an angel from the sky and wrestle them by hand in exchange for health or more years spent with a partner already fated to die while he was fated to live forever. 

There were millions and millions of words in the world, and yet no arrangement of them quite encapsulated how it felt to know that dreaded epilogue to his joy and the first chapter to his grief had come hundreds of pages too early.

“Juno,” Nureyev tried to begin, though the words festered and turned to ash upon his tongue.

“I’ve been thinking of what you told me the other day,” Juno pressed anyway. “About when you were a kid.”

Nureyev furrowed his brow, trying to remember which of a thousand things Juno was speaking of. When Juno’s chills grew violent and his chest grew tight, Nureyev had made a habit of letting him prop his head upon his chest and whispering stories of childhood and travels and adventures and the pleasant memories they shared into his hair. With no contagion to worry about, Nureyev didn’t need to concern himself with their closeness when he held Juno tight and pretended his own embrace might fend off that of death for a little longer. However, there was the added downside that he got to watch his wife wither away up close.

“Was it about my father?” Nureyev asked, still watching Juno’s face for some sign that might have been recognition.

Juno shook his head, though he paused himself to pat the bed besides him.

“Will you—”

“Of course, sweetheart,” Nureyev replied all too quickly, assuming his memorized position with his back against the great oak headboard and Juno’s head upon his chest. 

It wasn’t comfortable, but it didn’t have to be. He knew he wouldn’t have to get used to it for long.

There was a certain strangeness to laying in a bed that was once his, and yet he never slept in anymore. While he experienced fatigue like any other former human, he much preferred to crash head-first into sleep when crumpled in a chair at Juno’s bedside or on the floor of the bathroom after having sobbed his eyes a bloody red. 

Consumption was a home-wrecking mistress, for it had taken his own place in his own bed. Stretched out against a mattress rendered damp by a broken fever that left Juno’s gown clinging to him like a bandage to a bloodied wound, Nureyev felt as if he were in a stranger’s bed, rather than his own.

Regardless, he pulled Juno as tight to his chest as he could manage without causing either of them pain and pressed a kiss to his hairline.

“You were saying something about when you turned,” Juno managed to smile, even though his eyes had fallen shut in exhaustion. “How you bitched and moaned the entire time and everyone around you thought you were dying, just because you wouldn’t shut up about it.”

Nureyev scoffed.

“You’re not intended to enjoy the venom. Besides, I was dying,” he protested. “Quite literally. My heart ceased beating that week, dear.”

“Whatever,” Juno huffed. “You think it was any worse than this?”

Nureyev felt his face fall as he grasped for an answer. The week had been one of the most unpleasant in his life, and he had lived a particularly long one. He had put time and energy into forgetting the chills and aches and nausea, but with the sight of his lover turned gaunt and feverish and wheezing and his face rendered that of a corpse, he felt sure in his answer when he shook his head.

“I think it was a far kinder fate than yours, my love.”

He tried to hear what Juno said next, sure it was one jibe or another. There was something distinctly human in how he clasped onto his sense of humor, even when his ability to walk without assistance or breathe without shuddering had long gone. Nureyev pretended that didn’t make the backs of his eyes and the base of his throat burn, though he had no need of forcing back tears when he was too tired to let them flow anyway.

Nureyev tried to look down at Juno’s face, which had once been a comfort in its radiant beauty, like looking upon the smiling expression of a loving goddess. Now it felt more alike to staring at an ancient artifact which held strains of its former glory somewhere beneath dust and cobwebs and a cruel beating at the hands of time. Nureyev pressed a kiss to his forehead, determined to worship his goddess in sickness and in health.

“You’re not listening to me,” Juno snorted.

“I—” Nureyev began to protest. “My apologies, dear, I got carried away.”

“Lost in thought?”

“Staring into your eyes, my love,” Nureyev tried to smile. 

Juno wriggled in his arms faintly, though his efforts were fruitless. After a moment, he wheezed and shook his head, merely miming for Nureyev to bend closer. With his dead heart shattering in his chest, Peter did so, trying to keep a dry sob from his lips when Juno kissed him.

The doctor had warned against kissing specifically to keep death and disease to a minimum. He hadn’t known that Nureyev was already deceased, and yet, soon to be parted from his wife. While Juno prepared to put out to sea, Nureyev was buried in the sand.

“I love you,” Juno breathed.

With Juno looking at him like that, Nureyev felt he could kill God. He wished that would make any difference.

“I love you too,” he returned instead without the first idea of how to put his thoughts to words.

“I’m gonna ask you again, just in case you got so lost in my eyes that your ears stopped working,” Juno teased as Peter guided him back to his former placement atop his chest. “Whatever that vampire did to you all those years ago—would you be willing to do it to me?”

If Nureyev’s heart was capable of doing so, he was sure it would have ceased to beat.

“You said it yourself,” Juno continued. “It wouldn’t be as bad as this.”

“You would—” Nureyev began. “You’ve seen how I have to survive, love.”

Juno shrugged.

“I don’t want you to have to do it alone.”

Nureyev wasn’t sure what he had ever done to deserve the withered lady in his arms. Rather than put this into words, he merely pulled him closer and let his head sink down atop his shoulder, just to memorize what Juno felt like in his arms and thank God for every inch of him, regardless of whether or not the sharp lines of his skeleton cut through his skin.

“It’s painful, darling,” he protested.

“So’s this,” Juno snorted.

“And what if it freezes you in this condition?” Nureyev continued, knowing whatever excitement he felt thrumming within his chest would be far outweighed by the guilt of a shoddy decision.

“Then I want you to kill me,” he replied simply, as if it were no matter of debate. 

After his months of deterioration, Nureyev was forced to bite his tongue and agree. 

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m dead either way,” Juno shrugged. 

“Be serious with me, love,” Nureyev pressed, words muffled into the top of Juno’s head as he pulled him tighter. “Please tell me you’ve thought this through.” 

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while now,” Juno admitted. “This is the first time I’ve felt good enough to ask you.” 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Nureyev breathed. “My darling, I’m so sorry.”

“Not asking you to be sorry,” Juno sighed. “Just asking you to bite my neck already.” 

For the first time in what felt like years, Nureyev let out a laugh, as fond as it was ugly and unpracticed. A smile wisped across face in tandem, and for a moment, Peter felt one of those skeletal hands squeezing his own with all its faint and trembling might. 

Nureyev prepared to press his lips upon his partner’s throat, though Juno paused him to heave a shuddering, blood-soaked cough into his handkerchief. Peter grimaced, glad that the terrible wheezing that consumed his wife alive covered the sound of his dead heart breaking.

“Ready,” Juno choked when he managed to raise his head again, even if it had fallen limp across Nureyev’s abdomen. 

Nureyev pulled him into his arms and tried to ignore that this shell felt more like a bundle of dry brush to fuel a fire than a person. Regardless, he raised him horizontally and tugged him close to his chest.

“It’s going to hurt,” he warned as Juno’s head lolled back.

“Bite me.”

“Was that a joke?” Nureyev asked slowly. 

Juno’s face creased into a faint smile. 

“Yeah.”

Nureyev felt himself break into a grin. 

“God, I’m in love with you,” he chuckled, broken off when Juno reached a hand into his hair and shoved his head down towards his neck.

Though he hated to cause the lady who held his heart in weak and withering hands any more pain, Nureyev let his teeth sink into the skin above his shoulder. Juno’s face wrenched in a silent agony Peter couldn’t help but admire, for he remembered all too well how he’d writhed and squirmed and yelped when he had last been human. As if it were any consolation at all, Nureyev squeezed his hand.

“That’s it, dear,” he pulled himself away to murmur, though his lips still trailed apologetically over the wound. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m okay,” Juno said, a gasping wheeze. “Do you need more?” 

“I didn’t need to take anything, my love,” Peter assured him, hand still tight on Juno’s in a terrified grasp. “I’m done, regardless. I don’t believe it requires much of the venom.”

When Nureyev raised his head, he found Juno still shuddering as if against a biting wind. His eyes laid half-shut and the sickly gray high on his cheeks had not improved in the last few moments. A cold sweat seized at his face and neck and what of his chest was revealed by the collar of his nightgown. Nureyev wasn’t sure whether it was borne from pain or a broken fever.

“Juno,” Nureyev began again, pretending his terror-stricken words could even begin to sound gentle. “Juno, dear, are you alright?”

“Dying of disease,” Juno snorted.

“Is that what I am to you?” Peter tried to joke.

“Feels like I’m on fire,” he sputtered out before Nureyev’s face even had time to fall. “Hurts like hell.”

“That means it’s working, darling,” Nureyev assured.

He continued to handle Juno gingerly, as if too harsh a transition back onto the mattress might break him entirely. For the first time in weeks, however, Juno was the one to wrap his arms around Nureyev’s waist and pull him close. Peter tried to protest and muster some warning about saving his strength, but with Juno tucking his head into his shoulder and letting out a wheezing huff, he couldn’t bring himself to complain.

“I love you,” he assured him, just to sate the terrible creature in the back of his head that wondered if this might be his last chance to say it.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Juno sighed, his words muffled into Nureyev’s shirt.

Juno’s voice recovered first, and he made good use of that fact. 

“This first thing I’m gonna do when I can walk again is murder you,” Juno groaned at least twice, face down in the mattress all the while. 

Nureyev merely fixed his hair and kept him out of the sun while he was still sensitive and helped him to keep his hair out of his eyes through fevers and his adverse reaction to the new diet. He assumed he had been twice as insufferable during his own recovery, and therefore kept himself from complaining. Besides, it was far better to see Juno looking like the undead than like a corpse.

With the foul disease chased from their marriage bed, Nureyev found himself returning to Juno’s side, even if his wife had a tendency of muttering a string of curses in place of sweet nothings.

“I love you,” Nureyev chuckled one night.

“You did this to me,” Juno hissed in response.

“You did this to yourself,” Peter corrected with another laugh. 

Juno huffed and crossed his arms and pretended that he didn’t need to hold his smile back by force. 

The first day of the rest of their lives wasn’t necessarily an easy one, for stairs were still difficult and Juno still bitched and moaned every time Nureyev felt it right to carry him from room to room like a frail and fainting character in a romance novel. Juno’s hands still trembled as he relearned the piano and he accidentally collapsed when he read using the light from a sunny window. 

When his hands and health and new weaknesses betrayed him, Nureyev ensured he never faced it alone. He helped him through scales when his wrists went limp and dragged him off to bed if he tried to exert himself too quickly. All Juno had to do was trip and there would be two firm, yet ginger hands steadying him. 

That new and terrifying first chapter came to a close when Juno caught himself carrying Nureyev off to bed, threatening to haul him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes if he kept squirming. Any complaints Peter still had left died on his tongue, though he would not have been able to say them, for Juno kissed him speechless.

They found recovery first, then normalcy, then routine. When they calmed themselves and caught their breath and counted their blessings, they found themselves to be okay, already spirited away onto the next page of the book of their very long and very happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> i TOLD you there was a happy ending!! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill breathe in your general direction
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! I'm taking FREE penumbra commissions for anyone interested!!


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